Category: jackfruit of the week

jackfruit of the week (12.31.08), New Year’s Edition


Birthday jackfruit via Jill York. She notes that “it’s a disney world jackfruit, grown in epcot’s ‘living with the land.'”

I closed out 2006 with a list of predictions for 2007, including the death of Museveni from gout (still waiting) and the discovery of Salim Saleh’s closet shrine to Jay-Z (less probable, though not entirely impossible). Those were strange times.

I blogged less this year than in 2006 or 2007 (though I did provide you with some truly awe-inspiring Artocarpus heterophyllus), an unfortunate casualty of leaving Kampala for Kansas and, now, New York. I’m looking forward to landing at Entebbe Airport in five days, picking up a copy of the Daily Monitor and seeing what new venture the Aga Khan has planned in my absence.

Until then, I’m hesitant to predict anything. Instead, I offer hope for a swift end to the recent LRA uprising and apologies that I never got around to writing my reviews for the 2008 Africa Reading Challenge. May 2009 be a better year all around.

it’s just you: jackfruit of the week (11.30.08)

For more jackfruit pictures, check out all the Jackfruit of the Week posts.

For those of us who have spent long hours in front of blank computer screens, watching the empty status bar at the bottom of our browser windows, hoping to see a tiny increment of movement that would indicate our desired site was finally loading: wait no more.

A fellow GV-er has just sent out a list of three simples sites that will tell you whether it’s worth your time to keep anxiously biting your knuckles and hitting refresh:

Down for everyone or just me? will tell you whether everyone is having trouble accessing a site, or whether it’s just you. Blunt? Yes. Helpful? Absolutely.


Notify me when it’s up! and Ding It’s Up! both allow you to enter a URL and be notified when the site in question is operating again. Both sites will send an e-mail alert; Ding will text you or send an @reply on Twitter and also offers the option to be notified when a site goes down — a nice perk for web developers or site owners.



The sites were developed in response to the Twitter fail whale, but they clearly have a number of possible applications. Pretty snazzy.

jackfruit of the week (11.19.08)


Authentic Ugandan jackfruit via Tumwi

In all the election excitement and liveblogging frenzy, I missed a week. I’m making it up to you with a trip to Uganda.

That’s right, blogren. I’m coming back for two weeks in January, and if there’s not already a Uganda Bloggers’ Happy Hour planned (I’m looking at you and you and you), I’ll throw one.

In other news: elephants.

Elephants are cool in my book: big, adorable, seemingly genial. Except they’re not so friendly when they’re stomping over your crops, exacting revenge. Revenge! Who knew elephants were vengeful? (Even worse: drunken vengeful elephants.)

Apparently Ethan Zuckerman, who wrote last week about the perils of coming face-to-face with a vindictive pachyderm:

It’s a good idea to know whether elephants are enroute to your farm as one elephant can eat a year’s crops in a single evening. If you know that elephants are on the way, you can stand in your fields with torches and chase the animals off.

What you need (besides torches and the ability to outrun an angry elephant), Ethan says, is to know the elephant hordes are coming. Here’s where cool technology comes into play: Kenyan hackers are turning GSM phones into tracking systems. An organization called Save the Elephants has put GSM-powered collars on the animals. When the elephants cross a virtual fence separating them from humans, the collar sends a warning to villagers in the area via SMS.

Even better: since the villagers know they’re coming, they can use spotlights instead of torches and shouting to herd the elephants back to their home, a 90,000-acre conservancy.

In case any of you thought this whole mobile phone activism thing was just for politics geeks: remember the elephants.

jackfruit of the week (10.29.08): the U.S. elections

In six days, Americans will be rid of George Bush.

I’m pausing to let that sink in. It Sounds. So. Good.

Elections haven’t always been a big thing for me. Eight years ago I failed the AP U.S. History test because my teacher spent an entire semester discussing hanging chads instead of Eisenhower and the Space Race. Four years ago I jumped on the Dean bandwagon, supported Kerry and almost stopped talking to my boyfriend, who voted for Bush. Unlike some more liberal friends of mine, though, I didn’t care enough to show up to class on November 5, 2004 wearing this shirt:

We’ve managed (albeit barely) to survive the past four years, and this time around, I’m paying attention. And it’s not just me — the entire world is paying attention:

Martin Perez lives in Parañaque, a suburb of Manila, an ocean and a few time zones from the United States. But when he gets up at 5 a.m. to get ready for work, the high school teacher goes online to read the latest news in the U.S. presidential race, study poll numbers, watch YouTube videos — and blog about the McCain-Obama showdown.

“The Election That Has the Whole World Blogging”, Washington Post

Contributing to the global symphony of opinions is The Morningside Post, which is hosting a liveblog of the election returns. From noon to midnight EST on November 4, visit the site to see running commentary from international affairs and public policy students at ten different universities worldwide, from São Paulo to Singapore.

Also: if you’re an American and you don’t vote, may all of these wishes come true for you.

jackfruit of the week (10.22.08)

Some research I’m doing on crowdsourcing in crisis is starting to take (nebulous, uncertain) shape via my Delicious account. Some highlights:

  • The “crisis mapping” section of iRevolution, the blog of Fletcher School PhD candidate Patrick Meier, is a glorious treasure trove of histories, plans and possibilities for digital mapping based on crowdsourced information in conflict early warning and prevention systems. Meier is writing his dissertation about the effects of the information revolution on social resistance movements in authoritarian societies. In other words, I would very much like to buy him dinner.

  • FrontlineSMS isn’t exactly new (I first heard about it in 2007, when it was being used to help monitor the Nigerian elections), but the more I read about mobile phones, the more excited I get. Frontline allows anyone with a laptop and a phone to create a “central communications hub” that can use text messages to communicate with large groups of people: to send out an alert and get feedback on a specific crisis situation, for example, or to aggregate information during a natural disaster. The less altruistic could use it to organize flashmobs.

    Later today some friends and I are going to help advocate for Frontline by becoming an icon for them. Interested? Take a picture of yourself with your arms above your head, imitating the Frontline logo, and sent it to photo@frontlinesms.com with your name and country. They’ll put it in a slideshow that will be used to generate awareness and support.


    FrontlineSMS supporter Erik Hersman becomes a Frontline icon

AfrigatorIn other news: this week I was named one of the top 45 female bloggers in Africa by Afrigator. I’m happy that two blogs about Uganda are included, but I’m sad not to see Tumwijuke, Antipop or Magintu on the list. If you’re not a member of Afrigator, head over and register to submit your blog and to see what’s happening all over the African blogosphere.

That’s all for this week. Coming up next Wednesday: plans for quadricontinental liveblogging of the US presidential election returns at The Morningside Post.